Page 98 of The Reformatory

And Sweeting knew his weakness: the photographs. Haddock could have buried them in the woods, or put them in a safe-deposit box in the bank, or even under the loose floorboard in his bedroom closet he used when he brought them home over a long weekend. But he liked to see at least one photo every day, or all of them if he could, and that meant keeping them at arm’s reach—at his desk. Sometimes he only unlocked the drawer to see the envelope and feel the rush of electric joy, but it was so much sweeter to peek in for a glimpse in the light. He often woke from nightmares about his photo collection blown up as banners, swinging from the telephone poles at the Christmas parade, the whole town gasping and pointing, but he could not let go of the fire. The dead boys. The boys without clothes.

The first time Haddock had found his desk drawer not only unlocked but open, he’d thought he’d only been careless and cursed himself the whole day. The next time, he found his packet of photographs sitting on top of his desk in plain sight—and he’d known it was the work of a haint. But the third time, the boldest time, Sweeting had shown himself by leaving his own photo in the ring of charred bodies on top of Doris’s desk. She would have been sure to see it if she hadn’t arrived late that morning on account of her son’s visit from the doctor for flu.

Haddock had never come closer to a heart attack, pain cramping his chest. Sweeting’s photo had been on top, but even worse ones were tucked underneath. Haddock had barely had time to sweep the photos under his arm before the dorm masters came in for their staff meeting and Doris arrived red-cheeked and full of apologies. He’d asked Boone to lay fresh haint traps under his desk without telling him why, and since then his photos had been untouched.

But Sweeting, a ghost, had almost ruined him.

Three times this year alone, Haddock had taken his packet of photographs to the clearing in his yard where he burned leaves each fall, ready to drown them in gasoline. But he’d only made himself burn one: the boy he’d thought was only unconscious before he pulled off the boy’s pants and grabbed a broom handle to teach him a lesson. That was the only memory that made Haddock feel sick; he should have checked for a pulse first. He was not a desecrator of corpses. He had been the one to dress Lucy with such precision and detail for their immortalized photo with her on his knee, her dress sleeves puffed just so, her wispy hair brushed and neat.

Could Mother? His father? Certainly not. They couldn’t even watch him dress her, just as they’d never noticed her enough in life. He had more respect for the dead.

Rustling fluttered above him. Squirrels? Haddock’s ear caught any sounds of scurrying or motion. Sometimes boys hid in the trees to elude the dogs, or while they waited for the nerve to run. And sometimes—

A muffled CRACK sounded high above Haddock, left of him, and he raised his eyes just in time to see a sharp branch from a nearby pine come flying toward him from above like a spear, heavy with green needles. It stabbed the soil at least six inches deep barely a foot from him, standing as upright as the broom handle until it fell over from the needles’ weight. It was a long branch—four feet tall. It would have hurt him, maybe killed him, if he hadn’t dodged it.

Although his heart was wound up, his breastbone constricting enough to notice, Haddock laughed. He backed away from the canopy of treetops overhead until he found clear sky, slightly unsteady on his feet.

“You there, Sweeting?” he whispered. “That was you, wasn’t it?” Another hearty laugh swelled from his chest. He ignored the barely hidden hysteria in his own voice. “I’m not gonna let you do that, son. You’re not gonna kill me or drive me crazy. If Lucy couldn’t do it after all these years, you don’t stand a chance in hell.” But his voice quavered.

He might be surrounded by them. How many were buried out here in the woods? Haddock was glad to see the white truck pulling past the colored boys’ dorm below, headed toward the rutted path to climb up to Boot Hill. The truck rounded the red-clay walking path flanking the Negro schoolhouse toward the mudhole, gaining speed as it got closer. Good ole Boone was on his way.

Boone had called him at home at dinnertime last night with the news: Robert Stephens caught a haint. On the first try! Boone had helped Haddock set traps over the years, and occasionally they’d seen tiny dust piles waiting the next morning that might be a haint, or might just be plain dirt. But Boone had said, Boss, it was the damn’dest thing I’ve ever seen. And the grandson of a bona fide Gracetown-roots woman had seen a lot.

“We’ve got a haint catcher now,” Haddock whispered to the woods on Boot Hill, his nervous smile splitting into a grin. “Drop those branches while you can—maybe break a window in that truck when it gets here. Hell, have a damn ball. But you’re gonna be in my jar soon, along with all the rest of you. Then what will you little bastards have to say? Huh?”

He raised his voice at the end, more anger than mirth, and a flock of pine warblers flapped away from the treetops, thrashing the branches.

Haddock’s boots were still clean because he’d walked on stones and grass patches alongside the mud, but mud splashed the truck’s undercarriage as Boone drove toward him on the uneven road. Haddock made his way down the deer trail to meet the truck, balancing himself on pine trunks as his knee tried to give under him. He wasn’t long past fifty, but he could already imagine a time ahead when his bad knee would force him to walk with a cane. And Robert Stephens Jr. had the gall to kick Lyle McCormack—the town’s leading rusher who’d already signed with Florida State—in the knee right before his senior year of high school. What were the odds of it, the boy appearing just when Haddock needed him most? Maybe Boone had summoned Robert Stephens somehow. Maybe they both summoned the boy together.

Boone swung his girth out of the truck by the handrail. His leather pouch was cupped in his hand instead of where he usually wore it around his neck.

“Boss,” Boone greeted him, already grinning. After a haint left Haddock’s photos out in plain sight, Haddock had punched the burly Negro across the jaw and reminded him of his promise to cleanse the grounds, the reason he’d hired him. Boone had averted his eyes like a whipped dog whenever Haddock came near, but now Boone’s eyes were fixed with glee. If he’d had one, Boone’s tail would be wagging.

“Whatcha got for me?” Haddock said.

Only a few steps uphill winded Boone. He was more muscle than fat, but he had never learned to carry his own weight. “See for yo’self, suh,” Boone said. He reached into his pouch and pulled out a small tube from the high school chemistry lab. “It ain’t much… but you’ll see. Look there at the bottom.”

In the past, Boone had brought him dust piles half an inch thick, but barely a quarter inch of film lay across the tube’s flat bottom. Maybe not even that. But Haddock’s disappointment vanished when he held it closer to his face. This was different, pure golden-brown dust that turned darker or lighter depending on how he angled it in the light. He had dust like this in his main collection jar, but not all of it—too much of that dust was red, like the soil on the grounds. But now he knew the difference between debris and haint dust. He wondered if Boone had tried to fool him with fake dust a time or two, but he decided to let that suspicion rest. Boone had found him Robert Stephens, and that made up for a multitude of sins.

“Told you, boss,” Boone said. “In all my years, I swear, I’ll never forgit that swirling from thin air. Even Nana couldn’t do nothin’ like it.” His panting was from excitement now.

“Where’s Stephens hunting today? Back in the kitchen?”

Boone frowned, his grin forgotten. His stare fell to his feet. “He said… he needs a day after to rest. Just one day, he said. So he’ll see more.” He spoke low to the ground.

“Repeat that, please.” Haddock tried to keep anger from his voice, sweet as candy. Boone didn’t repeat it, not daring to.

“And you said all right,” Haddock said. “Like… a vacation.”

Boone winced at the word vacation as what he’d done dawned on him. Haddock had told him he was in a hurry to clean out the haints. His number one priority, he’d said.

“I’m sorry, boss, but, yes, I did. Let me explain: he did so good at it, no trouble at all, I thought it couldn’t hurt to rest him up. Sometimes Nana didn’t get up for days at a time after she read cards, ’specially when folks’ fortunes was hard to see. Hard on the spirit, I mean. If… their futures wasn’t clean. So one day off, well… I hoped that would be all right with you. A reward.”

Boone had reasons for everything he did, as diligent with a carrot as a stick. Haddock nearly had come to blows arguing with his swamp redneck cousins over the intelligence of Negroes, since white trash forever liked to say, They’re so dumb. They’d said as much about Robert Stephens Senior when Haddock had pointed out the holes in the rape story—primary being that not a soul worth trusting had seen him with Lorraine at Pixie’s that night and that Negroes were not served there. He was supposed to believe Stephens had been passing by in his car everyone knew on sight and offered a drunk white woman a ride? What Negro man in his right mind would offer a ride to any white woman, much less a councilman’s girl, even if she was only Tad Hurley’s mistress?

Whites thought Negroes were dumb because they didn’t let them say their piece—or didn’t listen when they did—but Haddock had been working alongside Negroes his whole life, and any white man who underestimated one might end up with a bullet in his back. Negroes were talented pretenders. Robert Stephens Sr. wasn’t dumb and neither was his son. Maybe the boy really thought he needed a day to rest, or maybe he wanted to quit catching haints.

“Next time,” Haddock said, “get my permission.”